Who is Alex Jones and why has Twitter banned him?

Jones is known for his loud and bombastic style, and his show puts forth conspiracy theories that have spurred fans to take matters into their own hands.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. File

A day after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified before the United States Congress on alleged bias against conservatives on the platform, the microblogging site permanently banned right-wing radio host Alex Jones, along with the official handle for his show, Infowars. Jones is known for his loud and bombastic style, and his show puts forth conspiracy theories that have spurred fans to take matters into their own hands. One of the more egregious theories was that the Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Stoneman Douglas High School shootings were staged and that the children never existed, leading to ‘truthers’ — fans of the show — harassing the parents who had lost their children in the tragedies.

Jones has been named in a series of lawsuits filed by the parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, and by Marcel Fontaine, a man Infowars wrongly identified as the shooter in the Parkland shooting.  U.S. President Donald Trump is friendly with Jones and has appeared on his show when he was candidate.

His theories

Jones claimed that 9/11, the London bombings and the Boston Marathon bombing were state-sponsored attacks. He also theorised that Robert Rodriguez’s  Machete  could start a race war between Mexicans and Americans, that tornadoes are caused by the U.S. government, and that the Pentagon is releasing chemicals into water that is turning ‘frogs gay.’  

Last year, when his ex-wife Kelly Jones sought custody of their three children, citing that “he’s not a stable person,” Jones’ lawyer stated in court that he was playing a character, which the host denied later.

In August 2018, Facebook, Apple, Youtube and Spotify all removed Jones’ show and his accounts from their platforms. Facebook, in a statement, said, “As a result of reports we received, last week, we removed four videos on four Facebook Pages for violating our hate speech and bullying policies. These pages were the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the InfoWars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page.”

When Facebook banned Jones, Wikileaks, British pro-Brexit leader Nigel Farage and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz all came to his defence.

For now, Jones remains banned on all social media platforms.